AMD Radeon HD 6990 Graphics Card
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Performance tests
Testbed:
- Intel Core i7-975 3340 MHz CPU
- ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard on the Intel X58 chipset
- 6GB of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM from Corsair
- WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA HDD
- Tagan TG900-BZ 900W PSU
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, DirectX 11
- 30" Dell 3007WFP monitor
- VSync disabled
- NVIDIA Drivers 266.58/266.66
- ATI CATALYST 11.2
Benchmarks:
- Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) — DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0 (HDR), built-in benchmarking utility (the Middle level), maximum settings.
- Crysis Warhead (Crytek/EA) — Cargo, DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0, Very High settings, batch file, timedemo available by e-mail request.
- Colin McRae: DiRT 2 (Codemasters) — DirectX 10.0/11.0, Ultra High settings, run as follows: "dirt2.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml".
- Metro 2033 (4A Games/THQ) — DirectX 11.0, Super High settings, PhysX disabled, run from in game.
- Just Cause 2 (Avalanche Studios/Eidos Interactive) — DirectX 11.0, Super High settings, run from in game.
- Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion/SEGA) — DirectX 11.0, Shaders 5.0, Very High settings, run from in game.
- F1 2010 (Codemasters) — DirectX 11.0, Ultra High settings, run as follows: "formulaone.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml". Game provided by NVIDIA.
- Tropics Benchmark 1.3 (Unigine) — DirectX 10.0, High settings.
- Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) — DirectX 11.0, High settings.
- 3DMark 11 (FutureMark) — DirectX 11.0, Performance settings.
We'd like to thank Unigine for helping us set up their benchmarks.
Far Cry 2
Crysis Warhead, Cargo
Colin McRae: DiRT 2
Metro 2033
Just Cause 2
Aliens vs. Predator
F1 2010
Tropics Benchmark 1.3
Heaven Benchmark 2.0
3DMark 11
Conclusions
AMD Radeon HD 6990 demonstrated the truly highest performance, except for Formula 1 and Just Cause 2. In the former case the CrossFireX mode could not be enabled due to drivers. In the second case VSync could not be disabled despite correct settings. Hopefully, these bugs will be fixed in new drivers.
Naturally, AMD Radeon HD 6990 outperformed all previous champions. Since it's essentially a couple of interconnected HD 6970 cards (with certain simplifications) and since GeForce GTX 580 is not twice as fast as the latter, it yielded. Let's see what NVIDIA will offer next and how it will compare.
In general, such cards are mostly intended for large monitors with very high resolutions. Otherwise, their performance may be limited by the rest of the PC. And, of course, we all realize this is an image solution, one for enthusiasts. Hence the price.
Speaking of drawbacks, there's a couple of potential ones we should mention: 1) dual-GPU cards are very driver-dependent, CrossFire profiles included; 2) there also may be situations when a game will lag, but fps will still be high. Unfortunately, these two are the Achilles' heel of solutions from both AMD and NVIDIA.
Finally, remember the dual-BIOS switch. The overclocked mode essentially 'provides' you with two Radeon HD 6970 cards, so it's interesting to see what's better in terms of pricing: a couple of HD 6970 or one HD 6990.
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